The Arkansaw traveler., 1887-07-16

| S@AA ASp ~ W eAc oAAA 0AxktOcA RtOkCu wilderness, given up to the bufaloes, antelopes, wolves and painted Sioux. In 1870, it had about l2,000 inhabit- ants; in 1880, lS5,000. To-day, it has fully 500,000. Stretching from the Red River of the North to the Rocky mountains, and from British America to Nebraska, nearly every acre of it is rich in agricultural, pastoral or min eral wealth. Its bonanza wheat farms are famed throughout Christendom, its horizon-tenced pasture lands would feed nations flocks and herds. and its Black Hills gold mines pour annual millions into the treasuries of the world. The whole territory is dotted with lakes blue as the skies that bend above them, among the number being the romance haunted Devils Lake, an inland salt sea with five hundred miles of shore line, and depths that in some places are fathomless. Schools, colleges, churches and asylums are strewn broadcast over the great terri tory, and busy young cities like Fargo, Grand Forks, Bismarck, Dead wood, Sioux Falls and half hundred more have risen like exhalations from the wild prairie grass of ten years ago into all the bustie and dignity and style of metropolitan life. The ter ritory, though denied admission to the Union as state, has more popula- tion than six. of the states, more wealth than eight of them, and more push, nerve, intelligence and future possi- bilities than twenty of them. 1t is growing, and will continue to grow till, at some not distant day, if it can not get into the Union, it will be able to sit down upon it.
 Such is the modern Eden. Such is the region that regard as the finest on earth. Is there anything lacking in it? Grandeur, sublimity and beauty of scenery; infinite riches of soil and mine; healthfulness and yigor of cli- mate; exhaustless abundance of every thing that makes life pleasant or desirable; intelligent, progressive and prosperous people; every convenience and advantage of the age; all are here. Is not tour of such realm worth to any genuine American a score of ordi- nary, guide book trips to Europe? I recently published an article telling how much could be seen in four or five days on one of our great railway lines, the Chicago < Northwestern, at cost of little more than the price of trunk for European jaunt. The vast and glorious region I have just roughly outlined can be traversed, swiftly and luxuriously, at compare lively trivial expense, on another of our grand systems ofrailroad.
 Through all this magnificent en- pire the Chicago, Rock Island & Pa cific railway, with it's connecting and tributary lines, stretches like mighty artery or system of arteries, along which pulsates the life blood of pro- gress and prosperity. One does not need to leave its flying palaces to see all the glories and beauties at which I have but clumsily hinted. Grasping in its mighty hands the great lakes and the Rocky Mountains, the turbid floods of the Father of Waters, and his grandest tributary, the swift rolling, muddy Missouri, it clasps in ever-ex tending arms of iron and steel the fairest and best states of the Union, the richest regions of the con tinent. Along it's widely -rnmifying lines of two-ply steel are strung like glitteripg jewels in a regal necklace nearly all the most important cities of the west-Chicago, the great metropolis of interior America; Peoria, whose in- ternal revenue district pays more money into the United States treasury than any other in the country; Rock Island, with its immense and varied manufactories, it's magnificent bridges across the Mississippi, and its vast and costly government arsenal and island establishments; Davenport, Cedar Rapids, Des Moines, the pretty and rapidly growing capital of Iowa; Kansas City, the second Chicago, the magical city of the southwest; Wichita
 whose boom has surpassed all the tales of cnchantment, which has sprung from nothing into a rushing metropolitan city in five years; Atchi- son, Leavenworth, St. Joseph, all solid, handsome and prosperous cities of from thirty to fifty thousand peo- pie; Council Bluffs, Omaha, another of the worlds wonders in growth and prosperity; Denver, the beautiful queen city of the plains and Rocky Mountains; Minneapolis and St. Paul, whose rise, ill ten years, from strag- gling frontier towns to population of 150,000 each, has rendered all the tales of oriental wizards commonplace and tame; Fargo, Sioux Falls and Water town, Duluth, "the zenith city of the unsalted seas::" Ashland, Milwaukee, the rich and beautiful metropolis of Wisconsin, and hundreds of smaller places all worthy of the attention of tourist, investor or home-seeker.